Tainted Bay seafood - fishermen aren't warned

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 8, 1998

Government is failing to protect people who fish San Francisco Bay and other waterways from eating species tainted with toxic chemicals, including DDT, PCBs and mercury, an environmental group said.

Federal and state regulators don't have adequate monitoring programs or sufficient standards to keep up with the widespread pollution, according to a study prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council and released Wednesday.

"In spite of the fact that we're the most populous state in the country with a substantial number of recreational and subsistence anglers, we have no idea what concentrations of the chemicals are in the fish. It's pathetic," said Lawrie Mott, a senior scientist at the private organization.

"In California, no agency is fully responsible for posting warnings," Mott said. "The consumers, and in particular these anglers, should not bear the burden of chemical contaminants in fish. It's the government's responsibility to protect the public's health."

The study, titled "Contaminated Catch: The Public Health Threat from Toxics in Fish," found that human health advisories rose by more than 70 percent nationwide between 1993 and 1996, the years studied. The number of health advisories posted in 10 states, including California, remained roughly constant over that three-year period, according to data provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

States don't test their waters often enough, fail to maintain standards for how and when they decide to issue warnings and don't provide adequate notification on contaminants in sports and commercially caught fish, the study said.

On the rivers and bays, the warnings are confusing because there are different alert levels for different species, it said.

The study recommended minimum standards for developing health advisories that would apply to all states. It also asked that a federal agency coordinate the collection and reporting of data about fish tissues.

The study was issued the day after Assemblyman Mike Sweeney, D-Hayward, held a hearing in Oakland of the Senate Assembly Select Committee on Coastal Protection to examine ways to clean up "toxic hot spots" in the Bay.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, whose staff testified at the hearing, released a draft study in January proposing that the whole San Francisco Bay be listed as a "toxic hot spot" because of high health risks from mercury, PCBs, DDT, dioxins and pesticides chlordane and dieldrin.

In California, the regional water boards periodically test bodies of water and pass results to the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, which issues the health advisories published in the Fish and Game Code.

On the Bay, health advisories limit people to two meals a month of any fish (except for herring, anchovies, salmon and smelt) and no striped bass larger than 35 inches. The advisories restrict pregnant women and children to one meal a month, and recommend not eating striped bass larger than 27 inches and sharks larger than 24 inches. People are discouraged from eating larger catches because as fish grow, they accumulate more poisons, such as mercury, in their tissues.

State health officials are trying to improve ways of informing the public about the Bay advisories, said Dr. Rick Kreutzer, chief of the state Department of Health Services environmental health investigations branch.

"We're trying to learn about fish consumption by different groups of people to be sure that the advice protects them from unwanted risks," said Kreutzer.

Mike Thomas is an organizer with San Francisco Bay Advocates for Environmental Rights, founded by Communities for a Better Environment to reach foreign-language speaking anglers who depend on the Bay for food. Thomas said he agrees with the study's recommendations.

"We believe that the regional water board's focus should be on monitoring and prevention of industry and municipality discharges rather than trying to tell people who are fishing on the Bay, "No, you shouldn't be doing that,' " Thomas said.

Over the past four years, the groups have successfully worked with San Francisco and the state to post in eight languages warnings for Bay fish consumption.&lt;